Thursday, November 4, 2010

Good job, America

Citizens United (for Undisclosed Donors) has helped to make sure that we have no idea who is behind the funding of 42% of outside dollars, and this was the most expensive midterm election in American history.

It's nice to know that in these trying times of 9.6% unemployment and general economic hardship, America can still scrape together 4 billion dollars to elect new officials.

Every big election season, it bugs me. I get those nice, ideal, frolicking-in-the-meadows visions of what other things that kind of money could do, and think things like, "We can spend 4 billion dollars buying an election, and that doesn't seem to bother us, while people are out of work, can't feed their families, and are losing their homes?" In fairness, of course, 4 billion dollars would not buy much on a national scale for large groups of people... but still... I see that number, and I think, "The money is out there... we have a big distribution problem..."

Real, substantive (there's that word again) campaign reform needs to happen to level the playing field for all, and give us a break from the noise, which is becoming unceasing, and is certainly not making the American voter any smarter or nuanced, but the likelihood that we will see that anytime soon has dwindled to pretty much nothing.